REUNION ON A GOLDEN DAWN

By:  Corielle and mdelaur

          “Do you think you left the locket down by Hagrid’s, Cho?”  Marietta asked with forced calm.  Before she heard her answer, Cho swept past her, and Marietta watched her disappear into the blackening night.  Hurrying after her, Marietta attempted to slow Cho by grabbing her arm, but Cho wrenched out of her grip and shouted through the quickening wind. 

“You don’t understand...it’s all I have left of her!” shouted Cho. Marietta watched with pity as Cho searched for the last link to her deceased mother.

Cho frantically searched on hands and knees simultaneously as a wet drop pricked Marietta’s skin. Cho shrieked as lightning lit up the sky for she had a childish fear of thunderstorms, and took off running through the foliage. She stopped much later, a stitch in her side, to realize that she was completely alone.

“Marietta?” she called into the night, pausing to listen for a response. She huddled down onto the wet ground, soaked and chilled to the bone. She threw her arms around her bent knees and sobbed in desperation. Not only was she afraid of thunderstorms, but she was lost in the Forbidden Forest in the dark of the night, completely alone.

“Wha’ was that?” she sobbed through her tears, her head snapping up at the sound. She peered into a pair of gentle eyes. She shrieked in fear and turned to run, only to realize what was before her. There, silent and docile, was a baby unicorn. It turned in fright at the noise Cho made and bounded away.

“Wait! Come back!” Cho called after it. She ran quickly through the underbrush in pursuit of the animal. She caught up to the unicorn for it had stopped suddenly, its scrawny legs trembling, its eyes full of grief.

“What’s the matter, little one?” Cho said, her voice barely over a whisper. She reached out and stroked the stunning gold coat. She then slowly brushed away two large leaves obscuring her view of what the unicorn was so terrified of. She gasped in shock and turned to be sick. There, horrifying yet beautiful, were dozens of enslaved unicorns harnessed and pulling log after log in a large open clearing. An overseer was whipping the unicorns mercilessly. 

Cho watched the events with shock and disgust, her senses barely processing the full severity of the matter. Her hand went on, stroking the terrified unicorn beside her. Under her hand, Cho felt it suddenly stiffen, letting out a high pitched wail. As she tried to silence it, she realized in horror that the poor creature must have been taken away from its mother. And as it tried to pull away from her toward the scene, it dawned on her heavily that the unicorn currently feeling the harsh tongue of the whip was the innocent foal’s mother.

She felt disgusted with herself as a childhood song of hers came crashing into her head, its words slightly changed to fit the scene that she couldn’t block out of her mind. “Be kind to your horn bearing friends, for the unicorn could be somebody’s mother…” She turned to retch once more, but as suddenly as she had come upon the scene, she was grabbed tightly by her hair and pulled off the ground.

“Now what do we have here? A leetle chickie for me, now?” said a horrible man, his teeth stained with tobacco. His sweat drenched muscles bulged and his eyes glittered menacingly. “And such a preetty one at that!”

With his free hand he grabbed her neck and brought her into the clearing, kicking away the poor baby unicorn. “Look fellas! Look what I caught!” he called.

“Mack...” said a second wizard.  “Someone might look for the girl, and I don’t want to be held responsible if she were to tell.”

“The chickie won’t be talkin, now will she?” said Mack, his hand trailing down Cho’s arm.

“Let me go!” she gasped, pulling at the man’s fingers tight on her neck.

“You goin’ to fight me?” said Mack sarcastically. “Fellas, I theenk she likes us real well, don’t you?” He petted her soft hair and caressed her face.

“Don’t touch me!” she spat, throwing his hands off her. “You can’t do this to the forest! You can’t cut down the trees! The forest is sacred to so many creatures-”

“What you gonna do about it?” asked Mack, his face twisting with wicked glee.

“Come now, Mack. She won’t say anything. Look, it’s almost morning,” said the man who had opposed Mack earlier. Cho looked up in surprise. She turned back towards the man, however, when he grabbed her wrist tightly.

Mack began to drag Cho to the far end of the clearing. She struggled to resist him, but to no avail. Suddenly she remembered her wand and quietly, as to bring no attention to her actions, she pulled it out.

“Relashio!” Cho called out, pointing her wand at the man. He let go of her and fell backwards. “Stupify!” She bellowed as she ran to the unicorns and with a few words and flicks of her wand, had set them free.  Most of the unicorns gratfully disappeared into the forest leaving only the small golden foal and its mother.  As the grown unicorn turned Cho felt herself gazing into its eyes.  She had the feeling that there was a depth to those eyes that she had never seen before in a creature of any kind, and that it understood the deepest realms of her soul.  She felt within herself the need to follow them as they turned to enter the rich forest. 

To her amazement she found herself led directly to the castle.  She turned back to the foal and its mother to find herself completely alone. Her eye caught a golden shimmer, and she bent down to find the golden locket at her feet.  As the clouds parted overhead, she truly felt that she was reunited with her mother, just as the foal had been with hers.